Steve Skipper

for

School Board

District 4

Profile

Education Beliefs

The basics are a must:

Math – I teach adult education licensing classes.  Two out of three of adults taking my classes can’t multiply a fraction times a whole number. This needs to change.

English - Very few people under age 55 have ever diagramed a sentence. They can’t tell you the difference between a direct and indirect object. It’s not that they forgot; they never learned it.

Social Studies – Basic timelines of events, causes of past wars and the Constitution are just as important today as they were 250 years ago.

Foreign language – Everyone knows the best time to learn a language is at a young age. Most languages are not seriously introduced until high school.

Science – Everyone should be exposed to the basics in biology, chemistry and physics.

What are some of the problems we have in Federal Way Schools

Nothing good happens accidentally! We have many devoted teachers, parents and administrators in Federal Way . What we need now is a board with a concrete vision. A board that is not upsetting someone is doing little.  A board that is waiting for someone else to solve the problems of Federal Way isn’t doing its duty.

The status quo keeps the majority of people happy. Where are the National Merit Scholars from Federal Way ? How do our students compare when they compete in college against others? When we budget money for the district, are academics the priority, or is money spread so thin that nothing is done exceptionally well. Our administrators and teachers can respond to these challenges, but the community has to demand improvement.

Minority achievement

Many of our minorities are not very successful, year after year, in education in Federal Way and yet we continue to offer the same programs.  Achievement scores are declining for several minorities.  This calls for more drastic changes.  There are schools elsewhere that have been far more successful than in Federal Way .  Why are we not emulating them?

Parent Engagement

Give the parents a choice that matters. Whether to participate in a fund raising for the school is not going to matter as much as what teacher their child will have in each class or subject matter. How does a parent know which teacher to choose? The word travels amongst the parents, but posting test scores from standardized tests would also be an indicator of who is doing the best job in the classroom. No student should be able to change any schedule without the parent’s approval.

Reputation of our schools

The least expensive school in FW to operate has some of the best educational outcomes. It has some of the best parental involvement and it is a school of choice. Why would we have a school like that in the district that has a waiting list and not open another one? Why should north end residents have to transport their children to this school in the south end? Where is the north end school?

How we could improve our schools.

• Parental awareness

• Parental choice

• Better Guidance for both parents and students

• Better allocation of funding towards all students achievement

• More efficient use of taxpayer's dollars.

Why should you vote for me?

Maybe you shouldn’t. If you are happy with the way things are going, I’d be a poor choice. But before you get excited about all the A’s and B’s on your child’s report card, check to see if the corresponding WASL scores match the grades. I would think anyone vested in the status quo should be against me. I don’t want change just for change. I want change to bring about improvement. Parents should be in control again. Teachers should be responsible for the educational outcomes in their classrooms. Principals should be responsible for their schools and administrators should be monitoring to see this happens.

Thanks for Visiting this Site

I would love to hear from you. Email me at skipper6105@yahoo.com